Essays in Unitarian Theology by Kenneth Twinn Lindsey - General ...

ESSAYS IN UNITARIAN THEOLOGY
the problem of evil. This was the position of even
sucka non-theist as T. H. Huxley, who, in his Rornanes
Lecture of 1893, Evolution and Ethics, repudiated the
cc gladiatorial theory of existence " which he found in
evolution, and advocated, for human affairs, the
-
reversal of the cosmic process. * The evolutionary
theist, however, is bound to point out that any such
view ignores the fact that man himself has emerged
from 'the cosmic process. The microcosmic atom (to
A
quote Huxley's phrase), who pronounces the illimitable
macrocosm guilty, is himself the product of the macro-
cosm. This was well emphasized by Huxley's grand-
son, Sir Julian, who in his Romanes Lecture of 1943
took exactly the same subject as his grandfather had
I
done fifty years previously, and arrived at precisely the
otmosite conclusion. In actual fact, even T. H.
I I
Huxley was not entirely consistent, and in the pub-
lished form of his lecture he felt bound to admit that
the ethical process was in reality part and parcel of the
evolutionary process.Jr From the theistic point of
4 A
view, therefore, it can be argued that even such evil
as there may be in nature is an inevitable part of the
It is not possible [says Tennant] to imagine a living
world. in which truly ethical values are to be actualized,
save is an evolutionary cosmos in which free agents live
and learn, make choices and build characters.$
That - there could be a determinate evolutionary world
of unalloyed comfort, yet adapted by its law-abidingness
to the development of rationality and morality, is a pro-
* See Collected Essays, Vol. IX, pp. 8 1-3.
t Collected Essays, Vol. IX, Note on p. 1 14.
Philoso~hical Theology, Vol. 11, p. 185.
BELIEF IN GOD 39
position, the burden of proving which must be allotted to
the opponent of theism."
In any case, as Prof. Eric Waterhouse has argued,
the mere fact that man is disturbed by evil, is itself
evidence that goodness is the ultimate ground of the
world process.
Whatever way we look at the matter [he writes] it must
appear that the ground of the universe, and of our own
existence, whether we call that ground God or not, has
produced alike both the conditions which allow the appear-
ance of evil and those which condemn and fight against it.
If the former appearance of evil is quoted as evidence
against the goodness of God, the latter fighting it affords
equally good evidence against his moral impotence or
neutrality. Why a being morally indifferent, to whom
good and bad are alike just phases of the world-process,
should create beings who are so profoundly affected where
he is neutral, is just as serious a problem as why a good God
who hates evil should permit it.?
It can, of course, be argued, that the basic fallacy of
evolutionary theism lies in its bland assumption that
what results from the cosmic process must have been
there from the beginning. Admittedly, there is no
necessary reason for this, and some such theory as
emergent evolution is a possibility. But everything
turns on the question of what is the most satisfying
explanation of the universe, and evolutionary theism
seems to leave less questions unanswered than any
other theory. And if it be objected that we have no
right to seek for explanations and meaning, we can
only refer to the words of F. H. Bradley : "Metaphysics
may be the finding of bad reasons for what we believe
* Ibid., p. 201.
i= E. Waterhouse, Philosophical Afikroach to Religion, p. 173.